1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an IC card and an authentication method in an electronic ticket distribution system. More particularly, the present invention relates to an IC card that can cryptographically communicate with an opposite IC card or a tamper-resistant apparatus having an equivalent function to an IC card. The present invention also relates to an authentication method in an electronic ticket distribution system, which uses a cryptographic communication between an IC card attached in a communication terminal and the same IC card or a tamper-resistant apparatus having an equivalent function to the IC card.
2. Description of the Related Art
Cryptographic communication technologies, such as “Internet Draft The SSL Protocol Version 3.0” and “RFC2246 The TLS Protocol Version 1.0”, are well known, nowadays. Since these technologies do not largely change the schemes of present network techniques and network protocols, they are very effective for transmitting critical information such as personal information and credit card numbers secretly in an open network such as the Internet.
In the conventional communication technologies, though switching encryption algorithms used for mutual authentication was possible, to switch cryptosystems in accordance with relations to the type of bearer, processing speed and other factors required in the mutual authentication was impossible.
In various situations such as purchasing an electronic ticket by using an IC card, transferring the purchased electronic ticket to other person through IC cards, and using the purchased ticket by passing an IC card through a ticket collecting machine, cryptographic communications are used between IC cards or between an IC card and an equivalent function to an IC card. In some situations, strict security is required but high speed is not required, and in other situations high speed communication is required but strict security is not required. Strict security is required when purchasing an electronic ticket because the payment process is carried out in the communication, however, speediness is not required for this communication. On the other hand, speediness is required for ticket collecting machines in order to avoid long queues forming due to a slow collecting speed.
Therefore, the ability to flexibly manipulate various cryptosystems in accordance with the above situations has long been required in a conventional cryptographic communication system.